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Friday, December 7, 2012
Are Americans ready to deal with Syria's chemical weapons?
If President Obama were to deploy military force in Syria ? right into the heart of the Middle East ? would it be on moral grounds or in America?s self-interest?
The rationale for any US intervention in Syria may be important for Americans to know sooner rather than later. Intense fighting has erupted around Damascus. President Bashar al-Assad appears dangerously cornered. On Monday, Mr. Obama seemed to tip his hand more strongly on the moral versus self-interest question. He warned Mr. Assad that ?there will be consequences and you will be held accountable? if the Syrian Army uses its stockpile of chemical weapons.
The weapons pose little or no threat to the American homeland. Yet Obama?s moral stance on Syria?s weapons of mass destruction ? similar to his tough warnings to Iran about building a nuclear bomb ? has pushed him to promise a response in Syria that is only lightly veiled as one involving force. That contrasts with no threat of US force to end Assad?s killing of tens of thousands of civilians.
OPINION: Time for a no-fly zone in Syria
Obama?s last use of force against a country started with a moral goal ? to protect mass slaughter in the Libyan city of Benghazi by Muammar Qaddafi?s Army in 2011. As that goal was achieved, American forces then went further. They flushed out Mr. Qaddafi from hiding, resulting in his killing. Today, Obama cites the military result in Libya as a victory for the advance of democracy in the Middle East ? highlighting another moral purpose in his strategy toward the region.
In recent decades, the United States has often conflated national interests with moral purpose. The confusion can often result in difficult debates at home about the best use of resources.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, President George H.W. Bush argued for an invasion on the grounds of both protecting Persian Gulf oil supplies and defending the principle of national sovereignty in the world. In 2001, his son led a post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan both to capture Al Qaeda leaders and also to save that country from Islamic autocracy and to uphold women?s rights. Then in 2003, he led the US in an invasion of Iraq, both to promote democracy in the Middle East and to prevent Iraq from ever helping Al Qaeda obtain weapons of mass destruction for use in another terrorist attack on the US.
The US posture toward Iran?s nuclear program remains mainly a moral one: to prevent a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and protect Israel. To a much lesser degree, Obama cites human rights violations in Iran. But with Iranian missiles possibly able to reach US troops in Europe soon, Obama is deploying a missile shield in the region. And oil supplies also remain a concern.
Now Syria poses yet another possibility of an American president needing to clarify his goals in the use of force. The US has spotted the movement of chemical weapons by the Assad regime. And Russians report Assad seems desperate about his future, trapped by advancing rebel forces and his own Alawite minority that insists he not flee.
MONITOR'S VIEW: A model leader for Syria?
A US president not only needs to sort out the moral goals from the national interests in such situations, he also must take heed of public opinion. Polls show Americans eager to exit Afghanistan and avoid intervention in Syria. Yet more than half want the US to stand up to Iran.
America?s historical role as both the world?s occasional moral policeman and a country that pursues its narrow interests is in need of constant reevaluation. Syria?s near-collapse is a prime moment to do so again. A clear speech on Syria by Obama, followed by a debate in Congress, might prevent any unwise steps by the US in Syria.
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/americans-ready-deal-syrias-chemical-weapons-192744703--politics.html
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Opening Remarks by the President to the Business Roundtable ...
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
December 05, 2012
?
Business Roundtable
Washington, D.C.
?
?
10:57 A.M. EST
?
?
THE PRESIDENT: ?Well, good morning, everybody. ?It is great to see all of you. ?Many of you I've had a chance to see individually or in small groups over the last several months, but it?s good to be back at the Business Roundtable. ?Jim, thanks for your leadership.
?
Originally, my team had prepared some remarks. ?They always get nervous when I'm out there on my own -- never know what I might say. ?Given the dialogue that we had the last time, I thought it was useful for me to abbreviate my remarks, speak off the cuff at the top, and then spend most of our time just having a conversation.
?
Let me begin by saying that all of you in this room are not just business leaders, not just CEOs of your companies, but you're also economic leaders and thought leaders in this country. And I recognize that all of you have an enormous investment not only in your own companies but in the well-being of America. ?
?
There are a lot of patriots in this room, people who care deeply about not only your bottom lines but also the future of this country. ?You?ve shown that over the last four years. ?We've gone through as difficult an economic period as we've seen in most of our lifetimes, and we've emerged not yet where we need to be but we've certainly made progress. ?And the reason we've made progress in part has been because of the outstanding management and productivity gains and efficiencies and competitiveness that you?ve been able to achieve in each and every one of your companies.
?
And I've said this to some of the small groups, let me repeat it to the large group -- I am passionately rooting for your success, because if the companies in this room are doing well, then small businesses and medium-sized businesses up and down the chain are doing well. ?If companies in this room are doing well, then folks get jobs, consumers get confidence, and we're going to be able to compete around the world.
?
Now, the good news is that despite the extraordinary challenges that we've seen over the last four years, there is progress in some key sectors of our economy. ?We've seen housing finally begin to bounce back for the first time. ?And that obviously has an enormous ripple effect throughout the economy. ?Consumer confidence is as high as it?s been. ?Many of you, over the last two, three years, have experienced record profits or near record profits, and have a lot of money where you're prepared to invest in plants and equipment and hire folks. ?
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Obviously, globally, the economy is still soft. ?Europe is going to be in the doldrums for quite some time. ?Asia is not charging forward, and some of the emerging markets are not charging forward as quickly as they were maybe a few years ago. ?
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But I think what all of you recognize and many of you have told me is that everybody is looking to America because they understand that if we?re able to put forward a long-term agenda for growth and prosperity that?s broad-based here in the United States, that confidence will not just increase here in the United States, it will increase globally, and we can get the kind of virtuous cycle that I think all of us have been waiting for and want to see. ?
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What?s holding us back right now, ironically, is a lot of stuff that?s going on in this town. ?And I know that many of you have come down here to try to see is there a way that we can break through the logjam and go ahead and get things done. ?And I?m here to tell you that nobody wants to get this done more than me. ?I know that you?ve gotten a lot of briefings, but let me just try to describe where the situation is right now with respect to our fiscal situation, both what the opportunities are but what also the challenges are.
?
I campaigned over the last year on the idea that we need to make sure that this economy is growing and that we?re providing ladders of opportunity for folks -- (electricity goes out, feed drops) -- I can speak pretty loud. ?Can people hear me in the back?
?
During the entire campaign, I talked about the importance of short-term measures to boost growth but also a long-term plan to make sure that we've got our fiscal house in order, and I called for a balanced and responsible plan. ?My budget reflects a balanced, responsible plan, and I've shown myself willing to make some tough decisions when it comes to government spending -- because, despite, I think, my reputation or the reputation of Democrats, I don't think every government program works exactly the way it should. ?I think there are efficiencies that can be gained; there are some programs that used to work and just don't work now the way they were intended. ?And as a consequence, working with Democrats and Republicans last year, we were able to cut over a trillion dollars of spending -- the largest cut, by the way, in discretionary spending in history. ?So we're prepared to make some tough decisions when it comes to spending cuts.?
?
But if you look at what?s needed in order for us to stabilize our budget, stabilize our deficit-to-GDP ratio, our debt-to-GDP ratio, then every credible economist will tell you that you can't just do it on spending cuts. ?We can't cut our way to prosperity, that there?s got to be a balanced approach in which we also are bringing in new revenues -- partly because our revenue levels are as low as they?ve been in most of our lifetimes.
?
And what I've proposed, what I put forward in the campaign and what I think a majority of the American people agreed with -- in fact, there?s some folks who didn?t vote for me that focus groups and polls show nevertheless they agreed with my concept when it comes to deficit reduction -- is that an approach that says we're going to raise additional revenue particularly from those who have done best in the economy over the last decade, combined with some smart cuts and with entitlement reform that can strengthen our social safety net over the long term but do so in a responsible way -- that's the way to go forward. ?And that's what we've put forward.
?
Now, the question I think on the minds of a lot of you is how do you get there -- because I know that, speaking to many of you privately, you agree with this approach. ?I've been struck by the number of CEOs who said, we're willing to pay slightly higher taxes if it means that we've got the kind of certainty and stability over the long term that allows us to invest and hire with confidence. ?So most of the folks in this room I think are onboard for a balanced plan.
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The problem that we had up until fairly recently -- and this was extensively debated during the campaign -- was the belief that either, A, we could balance our budgets entirely on spending cuts, or a variation that has emerged is, is that we can do so while still lowering rates simply by closing loopholes and deductions. ?And you?ve heard from my team, but let me just repeat, we don't have any objection to tax reform, tax simplification, closing loopholes, closing deductions. ?But there is a bottom-line amount of revenue that is required in order for us to get a real, meaningful deficit reduction plan that hits the numbers that are required for us to stabilize our debt and deficits. ?And all the math that we've done -- and we analyzed this stuff pretty carefully -- shows that it is not possible for us to raise the amount of revenue that's required for a balanced package if all you are relying on is closing deductions and loopholes.
?
Let me amend that. ?It is possible to do, theoretically; it is not possible or wise to do as a practical matter. ?And the reason is, is that in order for us to raise the amount of revenue that's needed just by closing deductions and loopholes for high earners, we?d have to, for example, eliminate or severely cap the charitable deduction. ?And folks in this room, you guys are not only CEOs -- I can't imagine there?s a person here who doesn?t sit on a number of non-for-profit boards, university boards, hospital boards. ?In your respective communities, you are supporting an entire infrastructure that is the glue that holds our communities together. ?So the notion that somehow we're going to just eliminate charitable deductions is unlikely. ?
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What that means is, is that any formula that says we can't increase tax rates probably only yields about $300-$400 billion, realistically. ?And that's well short of the amount of revenue that's needed for a balanced package.
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So what we've said instead is let?s allow higher rates to go up for the top 2 percent -- that includes all of you, yes, but not in any way that?s going to affect your spending, your lifestyles, or the economy in any significant way; let?s make sure that 98 percent of Americans don't see a single dime in tax increases next year, 97 percent of small businesses don't see a single dime in tax increases next year -- and by doing that alone we raise almost a trillion dollars without any adverse effects on the economy.
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Let?s combine that, then, with some additional spending cuts and some long-term entitlement reform that can get us to a number close to $4 trillion, which stabilizes our debt and our deficits relative to GDP for at least a decade, perhaps more.
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That's our plan. ?That's what we've presented. ?The holdup right now is that Speaker Boehner took a position I think the day after the campaign that said we're willing to bring in revenue but we're not willing to increase rates. ?And I just explained to you why we don't think that works. ?We're not trying to -- we're not insisting on rates just out of spite or out of any kind of partisan bickering, but rather because we need to raise a certain amount of revenue. ?
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Now, we've seen some movement over the last several days among some Republicans. ?I think there?s a recognition that maybe they can accept some rate increases as long as it?s combined with serious entitlement reform and additional spending cuts. ?And if we can get the leadership on the Republican side to take that framework, to acknowledge that reality, then the numbers actually aren't that far apart. ?Another way of putting this is we can probably solve this in about a week; it?s not that tough. ?But we need that conceptual breakthrough that says we need to do a balanced plan; that's what?s best for the economy; that's what the American people voted for; that's how we're going to get it done.
?
Let me make one last point and then I'll start taking questions. ?There had been reports -- and these are not necessarily confirmed, and maybe some of you have more insight than I do on this -- that perhaps the Republicans go ahead and let the middle-class tax cuts get extended, the upper-income tax cuts go up, otherwise we don't get a deal, and next year we come back and the thinking is Republicans will have more leverage because there will be another vote on the debt ceiling and we will try to extract more concessions with a stronger hand on the debt ceiling. ?
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I have to just tell you that is a bad strategy for America. It is a bad strategy for our businesses. ?And it is not a game that I will play. ?
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Most of you were involved in discussions and watched the catastrophe that happened in August of 2011. ?Everybody here is concerned about uncertainty; there?s no uncertainty like the prospect that the United States of America, the largest economy that holds the world?s reserve currency potentially defaults on its debts; that we give up the basic notion that the United States stands behind its obligations. ?
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And we can't afford to go there again. ?And this isn't just my opinion; it?s the opinion of most of the folks in this room. ?So when I hear some on the other side suggesting that to resolve the possibility of a perpetual or a quarterly debt ceiling crisis that there is a price to pay -- well, the price is paid by the American people and your businesses and the economic environment worldwide. ?And we should not accept going through that.
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John Engler, who is, I think -- he and I philosophically don't agree on much -- (laughter) -- no, I'm just being honest about John, and he?s a great politician but he -- he originally comes from the other party -- but John is exactly right when he says the only thing that the debt ceiling is good for as a weapon is just to destroy your credit rating.
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So I want to send a very clear message to people here: ?We are not going to play that game next year. ?If Congress in any way suggests that they?re going to tie negotiations to debt ceiling votes and take us to the brink of default once again as part of a budget negotiation -- which, by the way, we had never done in our history until we did it last year -- I will not play that game. ?Because we've got to break that habit before it starts.
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So, with that, let me just say we've got one path where we resolve this fairly quickly -- we've got some tough spending cuts, we reform our entitlements, we have modest revenue increases; you get business certainty; you do what you do best, innovate, invest, hire workers, make profits, do well by your shareholders and grow America -- and we then have open running room next year to deal with a whole host of other issues like information and tax reform and immigration reform that will further make America, Inc. competitive. ?That's one option. ?
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The other option is to engage in a self-inflicted series of wounds that will potentially push us back into recession and set back this country, after all the work that we've done over the last four years digging ourselves out of a hole. ?
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I know the choice I'd like to make. ?And I think the BRT can be helpful in making sure that everybody here in Washington makes the right choice. ??
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So with that, let me take some questions. ?(Applause.)?
?
?
END
11:14 A.M. EST
Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/12/05/opening-remarks-president-business-roundtable
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Thursday, December 6, 2012
Mind and Soul Body Massage In London | ArticleBro.com
Massage is very useful thing for everyone?s body, and there are various places where you are able to get London Massage. The massage rooms offering you high class of massage in London, where you will find yourself so rejuvenating and relax.? The massage parlor is located in the most luxurious part of apartments or you can say in the heart of London.
Cheap London Massage in Country
The massage room is offering you very cheap range of London massage and the most important the most beautiful massage by the beautiful ladies of London. Our company have experience of many years and offers you great opportunity to feel relax and comfortable for some time. All we know the good massage is very helpful in us life. There is thousands of good effect in our body with the help of good massage and techniques used by the masseuses. We promise that the company will offer you the most suitable and quality services for our clients to feel the amazing sensual after the beautiful massage.
We offer you the best massage and claim there would not be other company able to offer for their customers. We have trained and qualified masseuses, those are trained the respective field to make their clients happy and satisfied. The masseuses have an art and skill of different massages and they are running massage parlor beautifully in London. The massage is becoming popular day by day, because of its great achievement in the past and helpful for our body and mind and soul as well.
If you are planning to move London then we will definitely say to visit the massage parlor in the country.? There are several ways of London Massage that would help in reducing pain and aches of the body.
We are offering our services in and out station for demanding clients, but we charges extra for out station services. You can avail this services at home, offices and hotels. Our masseuses are highly skilled and very much friendly by behavior, so you will definitely enjoy company with each other. There are different packages for VIP, and out station customers, they are bit expensive as compared to other, but definitely enjoyable and pleasurable.
Apart from the facilities and services, we must have to know the importance of Massage London. First thing of this London massage, that it help in increasing productivity and morale of the staffs working in the corporate offices. It relaxes your body and open mind and soul. If you are visiting to business tour in London then prepare your mind to feel the sexy massage in the country. You can choose your location as per the suitability of yours.
If you are looking for more details then you can visit to our company?s page to know all the details and confirmation of the services. We hope you will really like our services and often visit again. We also offering you massage service in London and it also pampered around the country. Don?t wait for anything and call to book your advance service of Massage in London.
Source: http://articlebro.com/2012/health-fitness/mind-and-soul-body-massage-in-london/
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Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Swiss IT Guy Goes Rogue With US, UK Intelligence Data
American and British intelligence agencies on Tuesday were warned by the NDB, Switzerland's federal intelligence service, that some shared information related to counterterrorism had been stolen. Last summer, an NDB IT technician reportedly downloaded terabytes of data that had been shared between the NDB, the CIA and Britain's MI6. The man may have looked to sell it.
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Love Bytes: Do Financial Opposites Attract? | YourTango
Plus, ugh, how to make men fight over you.
Admit it, not a single one of you thought MC Skat Kat and Paula Abdul were good match. I mean how could someone who likes to party all night possibly make it work with someone who likes to go to bed early? That's well and good but can financial opposites be happy together? (LearnVest)
More from YourTango: Holiday Gift Guide For Outside-The-Box Relationships
Glad we've all graduated to 2012... how to make men fight over you. (TheGloss)
You have to hand it to the Chinese, no one has ever gotten AIDS from masturbating. Behold: the Wankathon. (Huffington Post)
The best things America's advice columnists had to say last week. (NYMag)
Does he have chest hair plugs? And 10 other signs a guy is a playah. (HerCampus)
Reason #945 to get breast implants: they stop bullets. (Huffington Post)
It is what it is. These 10 love-related phrases are PLAYED-OUT. Let's leave them in 2012. (Essence)
Sometimes sex is? gross. (Gurl.com)
Physician, love thyself. 10 nice things to do for yourself this holiday season. (Betty Confidential)
More from YourTango: Top 10 Annoying Habits Men Need To Kick
Player don't like to get played. 3 games women shouldn't fall for. (Madame Noire)
More juicy content from YourTango:
Source: http://www.yourtango.com/2012166870/love-bytes-do-financial-opposites-attract
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ASIA GRAPHICS-Philippines stocks most expensive in Asia
SINGAPORE, Dec 4 (Reuters) - The Philippines stock market
was set for a record close for the seventh straight
session on Tuesday as strong consumer and government spending
boosts the economy's prospects.
However, the blistering rally has made the country's markets
the most expensive in Asia. China is the cheapest in the region
after falling more than 10 percent so far this year.
Track the performance of Asian markets through these charts:
Asian markets performance: http://link.reuters.com/fyj53t
Asian markets valuations: http://link.reuters.com/zuj53t
For related stories and graphics, click:
For coverage of Southeast Asia, click:
(Compiled by Anshuman Daga and Patturaja Murugaboopathy;
Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asia-graphics-philippines-stocks-most-expensive-asia-070339548--sector.html
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Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Europe takes on tech giants and their tax havens
PARIS (AP) ? A storm is brewing in Europe as nations try to force Internet powerhouses like Google and Amazon to pay more in taxes.
Governments, hungry for money to prop up their struggling economies, are accusing the technology giants of incorporating themselves in low-tax countries so they can avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars to countries such as Germany, Britain and France ? where most of their European income is derived.
In Britain on Monday, a lawmaker pushing to tighten laws said the multinationals' ability to escape corporate taxes "is outrageous and an insult to British businesses and individuals who pay their fair share."
According to court documents, French authorities raided Google's offices in Paris over the summer and seized documents in a tax dispute. More recently, according to a published report, the French government presented Google with a ?1.7 billion ($2.18 billion) tax bill; Amazon acknowledged one for $252 million. Facebook is also in the line of fire.
In Italy, the undersecretary of the Economy Ministry revealed during questioning in parliament on Wednesday that the tax police inspected Google's books, adding that it found millions in undeclared income and unpaid sales tax.
The politicians are cracking down on U.S.-based multinational companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, claiming they pay paying little or no tax in Europe in spite of generating billions in revenue there.
But there is nothing illegal to the multinationals' actions. Thanks to the way the European Union is run, companies operating in Europe can base themselves in any of the 27 member countries, allowing them to take advantage of a particular country's low tax rates.
By setting up overseas headquarters in low-tax jurisdictions such as Ireland or Luxembourg and shifting the profits out of the countries they've done business in, the online companies have managed to keep down both sales taxes and corporate income taxes on their overseas income.
Google's British chief, Matt Brittin, said last week that the company "plays by the rules set by politicians."
"The only people who really have choices are politicians who set the tax rates," he told the U.K's Channel 4 News.
The fact that the methods are legal hasn't stopped resentment brewing among governments, other brick-and-mortar businesses, and households feeling ever higher tax burdens.
The British Parliament's public accounts committee said Amazon, by accounting for the profits made in the U.K. elsewhere in the EU, paid 1.8 million pounds ($2.9 million) in British tax in 2011, on revenue of 207 million pounds. In Italy, the government said tax police determined Google had undeclared earnings of ?240 million ($311 million) from 2002-2006 and had not paid value added tax of ?96 million in the period.
Philippe Marini, the French senator who leads the country's finance commission, estimated France is missing out on some ?1.3 billion in taxes from Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. And, Marini noted, that amount would pale in comparison to what they likely owe Germany and Britain where sales figures are even higher.
"A bakery across the street is easier to control," Marini said. "And households can't relocate to Ireland just like that."
The companies say they comply with the law and are cooperative in countries where they operate, but do not elaborate. Even people critical of their tactics say ultimately the job of an accountant is to keep a client's tax bill as low as possible. The companies also stress that they do pay some taxes - contributions to their employees' social security, for example.
France, however, is going after the tech companies aggressively: On June 30, tax authorities raided Google's Paris offices, according to court documents posted online after Google contested the seizure of its files. The tech giant has denied receiving a ?1.7 billion bill from the French government and says it pays all legally required taxes.
Taxes fall under French privacy law, so specific amounts are not made public. But the raid on Google's Paris offices is a sign the French government believes the tech company has more than just incidental support staff in the French capital. France's budget minister, Jerome Cahuzac, said "a certain search engine needs to regularize its situation in France".
Facebook, Amazon and Apple have come under similar French scrutiny, according to published reports and public filings. Marini said French law is lagging behind, but hopes to catch up. Tech companies differ from, say, a grocery store in that their product is stored on servers and not on a shelf. And unlike a family, the companies can essentially locate ? and re-locate ? anywhere.
Both Amazon and Google are contesting the French actions, though Cahuzac said he's confident the government will win in court.
Britain and Germany have joined France in aggressively targeting the tech giants and, officials say, are coordinating against what one official calls "stateless income."
The G-20 meeting in Mexico earlier this month showed a measure of international support for tightening the rules. The U.K. Treasury chief George Osborne and German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble called for a common front "to strengthen international standards for corporate tax regimes."
"Governments have to keep up in the race," said Marini, the French senator. "Companies have a much faster pace than either national or European law."
Helping the governments keep tabs on the tech multinationals is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Originally set up in 1948 with the aim of stimulating world trade, the OECD now is taking the lead role in fighting tax evasion, said Pascal Saint-Amans, director of the organization's Center for Tax Policy since February.
The OECD has established a locked database detailing some of the world's most sophisticated tax schemes to allow government tax authorities to privately share revenue-shifting schemes they encounter.
The main problem, for Saint-Amans, is that tax havens within Europe such as Ireland and Luxembourg ease the process that allows multinationals to send profits even further offshore to places like Bermuda. That makes it harder for the countries with the most staff and sales to track. Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook have international headquarters in Ireland; Amazon's international offices are in Luxembourg. But the biggest European markets for all those companies are Germany, France and Great Britain.
"At some point again you're back to the basics, which is where is the real activity? And that's something that we may have lost sight of," said Saint-Amans. "The low-tax regimes are more the consequence than the problem."
Saint-Amans, who previously worked on ending bank secrecy regulations, believes the problem of taxing "intangibles" can be similarly resolved in a year or two with a concerted effort from all the governments involved, including in the U.S. In the short-term, he said, the coordinated approach of France, Germany and Britain serves as a warning to multinationals trying to avoid taxes, as is the secure OECD database.
Governments, including in the U.S., have long tinkered with effective tax rates in order to attract and keep businesses. But there are signs of change even in the U.S., where all the major tech companies got their start.
"The ability not to pay tax on income that's booked offshore is now the single biggest corporate tax loophole in the code," said Reuven Avi-Yonah, an international tax expert at the University of Michigan who has testified before Congress.
The amounts booked offshore are considerable: For Apple, 61 percent of revenues come from outside the U.S. ? and fully a quarter of that from Europe alone. "Apple doesn't have a single store in Ireland," Avi-Yonah said.
In a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Apple said it had set aside $713 million for its 2012 foreign tax bill on overseas pretax earnings of $36.8 billion ? a provision of almost 2 percent of what it made.
Google's overseas revenues accounted for 54 percent of its total, including more than 10 percent in Britain alone. Meanwhile Google is tackling government action on another front. German politicians are considering imposing a so-called Google Tax ? a levy that would require search engines to pay each time they link to media content like newspaper articles or photographs.
According to a Senate committee memo from September, Microsoft used aggressive asset shifting to avoid $4.5 billion in American taxes from 2009 to 2011.
Avi-Yonah estimated the effective tax rate on overseas income at around 2 or 3 percent for multinational tech companies: Both in the U.S. and abroad, he said, "there's a general sense that these companies pay too little and don't really contribute their fair share."
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Counselor's Corner: Lifeskill ? Teambuilding ? Tierra Linda Middle ...
????????? ?Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success,?
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ? Henry Ford
December?s Lifeskill of the month is Teambuilding. The process of developing teams involves building relationships so that members of the team feel connected to one another. A team is a group of individuals who work interdependently towards the achievement of a goal or the completion of a task. In other words, members of a team come together, agree on a goal and agree that the only way to achieve the goal is to work together (Johnson & Johnson 1995)
Proven benefits of cooperative learning
(from http://cooperativelearning.nuvvo.com/lesson/3841-teambuilding-getting-students-ready-to-work-together)
Greater productivity and academic achievement
Constructive thinking skills: planning, inferring, analyzing, gathering data and strategizing
Social competency: trust in others, perspective taking, sense of personal identity, interdependence, sense of direction and purpose
Motivation: high expectations of success and achievement; high commitment and persistence
Social support: constructive management of stress; high quality relationships that extend life and are helpful to people
Psychological health: the ability to develop, maintain and improve one?s relationships and situation in life; success in achieving goals
Self-esteem: improvement due to positive peer relations and achievement
Positive interpersonal relationships: supportive friendships; appreciation of peers? skills and contributions
Intergroup relationships: caring concern; acceptance of multicultural diversity commitments to the common good.
During our next long Advisory, students will be participating in Teambuilding activities. Ask your child about it.
Happy Parenting!
Vivian Hyun Garlick, MS, LMFT
School Counselor
Tierra Linda Middle School
650-508-7370 x128/ vgarlick@sancarlos.k12.ca.us
Source: http://www.tierralindaschool.org/2012/12/03/counselor%E2%80%99s-corner-lifeskill-teambuilding/
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Four Bitchin' Babes | Triangle Arts and Entertainment
The Carolina Theatre presents
Four Bitchin? Babes
Jingle Babes! ?Decking the Halls with Songs and Folly?
Saturday, December 8
Let?s be honest, the holiday?s aren?t always jolly.? The Carolina Theatre would like to change that this year when they present the Four Bitchin? Babes on December 8.? Join the Babes as they deck the concert hall with songs and folly, musical traditions, shtick and stories of friends and family, malls and mayhem, and ultimately the joy that lies within it all.?? Tickets are $43-$23 and are on sale now at carolinatheatre.org, through Ticketmaster at 1-800-982-2787 or ticketmaster.com.
What could be more fun than these four accomplished and seasoned musician-actress comediennes coming together taking turns in the spotlight filling it with whimsical songs and shenanigans, presenting the hippest and most luxurious girl group harmonies ?evah!?
Standard performance consists of four thrilling and beautiful, crazy ladies goofing off and singing like you wouldn?t believe.? Dressed nicely, of course.
The Four Bitchin? Babes are Sally Fingerett, Debi Smith, Deirdre Flint and Mary Marxer.? Playing their own guitars, bass, piano, Irish Bodhran, mandolin, and ukulele, this hilarious renegade sorority of gal pals use their elegant wit, sophisticated (never blue) stand-up humor, and enough bling to hypnotize the first five rows of any theatre, creating an evening of wildly fun and raucous delight!
About The Carolina Theatre of Durham
The Carolina Theatre of Durham, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which manages the city-owned Carolina Theatre at 309 W. Morgan Street, Durham, NC 27701.
Carolina Theatre of Durham, Inc. is dedicated to presenting vibrant, thought-provoking film and live performances that contribute to the cultural and economic vitality of downtown Durham and the Triangle Region.
Live performances at the Carolina Theatre are supported in part by the A.J. Fletcher Performing Arts Fund of the Triangle Community Foundation.
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Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)
Four Bitchin' Babes ,Source: http://triangleartsandentertainment.org/event/four-bitchin-babes/
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Monday, December 3, 2012
Sudanese police kill 2 militants in remote region
KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) ? A Sudanese official says police have killed two Islamic militants and arrested about 20 in a raid on a militant training camp in the country's south.
The governor of Sinnar state along the border with Ethiopia said Monday that four policemen were wounded in the attack, which occurred on Friday.
Governor Ahmed Abbas was quoted by the al-Shurouq independent TV channel as saying the militant group was behind an October attack on guards at the Dindir National Park ? the largest wildlife park in Sudan.
The park is a known hideout for outlaws as it's hard to access during the June-October rainy season.
Abbas says those arrested are university students. Their leader, a university teacher, also was arrested. He says they are being investigated and will be brought to trial.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sudanese-police-kill-2-militants-remote-region-094229888.html
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Bismuth provides perfect dance partners for quantum computing qubits
ScienceDaily (Dec. 2, 2012) ? New research has demonstrated a way to make bismuth electrons and nuclei work together as qubits in a quantum computer.
The discovery, published in Nature Materials, takes us a key step further to creating practical quantum computing which could tackle complex programs that would otherwise take the lifetime of the universe to finish.
The collaboration partners are based in the University of Warwick, UCL, ETH Zurich and the USA Sandia National Labs.
Information on our normal computers is stored as bits, which are either ones or zeros. Quantum bits work differently in that each quantum bit can try out being a one and a zero at the same time, which makes them much more powerful for solving certain problems.
Researchers have explored influencing the direction of spin in electrons to create those states but this approach has had its challenges.
Dr Gavin Morley from the University of Warwick's Department of Physics said: "Bismuth atoms in silicon crystals are great at working as quantum bits. Each bismuth atom has a spare electron, which has a "spin" that can be influenced by magnets.
"If we put the electron into a magnet, it lines up with the magnetic field, behaving like a compass needle.
"We can control the direction that the electron is pointing in, using microwaves. Microwaves let us flip the direction the electron is pointing in, and these "up and down" directions are what constitute the "one and zero" in our quantum bit.
"Unfortunately, our electron is constantly prone to interference from nearby atoms that are out of our control.
"And the more time we waste, the greater the chance that our poor electron will suffer from interference, making it unusable to us."
"Now, this electron is coupled to the bismuth nucleus, which has its own spin: a smaller compass needle. Using this as an extra quantum bit and flipping it at the same time as our electron, would really help out. We can control this smaller compass needle too, but as it's smaller, it takes longer to control, and we need to use radiowaves instead of microwaves to do this."
"The good news is that as it's slow to respond, our bismuth nucleus's smaller compass needle suffers less from interference by nearby rogue atoms than our electron's larger compass needle. Unfortunately in the time we spend controlling our bismuth nucleus, these rogue atoms interfere with our electron."
"However we found that if we reduce the magnetic field just enough, then the electron and the nucleus become hybridized. Our new experiments at ETH Zurich show that through hybridisation, we can flip both compass needles easily using microwaves."
Dr Morley compares it to the magnetic resonance imaging we find in hospitals.
He said: "MRI works by controlling the nuclear spins in your body.
"We have hybridized electron and nuclear spins and found that this makes it easier to control them.
"It's an easy new way to make slow and fast quantum bits work together. There are lots more challenges to face before anyone has a working computer with enough quantum bits to be useful, but with this hybridization as part of a computer's design, we are one step closer."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Warwick, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Gavin W. Morley, Petra Lueders, M. Hamed Mohammady, Setrak J. Balian, Gabriel Aeppli, Christopher W. M. Kay, Wayne M. Witzel, Gunnar Jeschke, Tania S. Monteiro. Quantum control of hybrid nuclear?electronic qubits. Nature Materials, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nmat3499
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/physics/~3/PHR0YYBMToM/121202164321.htm
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????????? ?????????? ??????????? Windows Phone 8 ?? HTC HD2
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http://www.youtube.c...r/Xone83/videos
Source: http://forums.ferra.ru/index.php?showtopic=53297
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Public Speaking 101: How to Emphatically Enumerate Things ...
By , Saturday at 11:07 pm
Nothing?s worse than a pompous lecture ? unless you get to give it and your audience can?t duck it. (I.e.: small children, employees with uncertain job security, the uglier person in a couple). But even the most semi-tolerable lecture can verge on unbearable if the speaker inexpertly tries to add emphasis by counting his points off aloud.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Iterations: Let?s Hear From Developers In ?The War For Talent?
Over the past few years, I've helped a small handful friends move from one gig to another. It's a highly personal process, and I'm not a "recruiting expert." Generally, in my limited experience, it often takes many conversations even before a close friend opens up about their desire to move or try something new. The motivations for each change are so different. Some want to work in a different industry, on a different technical problem, in a different city, for a different boss, for a different title, and so on. And, through these conversations, some patterns emerge, dangerous to extrapolate from, though illuminating given the fact every investor and founder stays up at night wondering how to deploy that early capital to find the right people to build out their vision.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/-pXswx6MQ3E/
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Samsung spending ludicrous amounts of money to advertise Galaxy phones against Apple and the iPhone
What does it take to try and push more Samsung Galaxy devices than Apple iPhones and iPads? An incredible amount of advertising and marketing money, apparently. When compared not only to Apple and Microsoft, but even ad-heavy companies like Coca Cola, Samsung's run rate looks even more ludicrously large. Horace Dediu of Asymco put together the following chart:
While Apple isn't spending anything close to what Samsung is in advertising, Apple has an iconic brand and enormous mind-share. What's more interesting is wondering how other Android manufacturers, ones that don't have the ancillary businesses Samsung has, and can't spend as much on advertising as Samsung can, will keep up?
What happens when Samsung becomes synonymous with Android? Is that better or worse, competitively, for Apple?
Check out the rest of Dediu's article for more charts and analysis.
Source: Asymco
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/NECQdpJ5l3c/story01.htm
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HTC confirms the Windows Phone 8S will not be coming to the US
The HTC Windows Phone 8S was announced as a lower-end alternative to its bigger brother, the flagship Windows Phone 8X, but the company has remained relatively quiet about it since. While we're still awaiting official details on pricing and availability across the globe, HTC has filled us in on one crucial nugget of information: it won't be coming to the United States. While we've been suspicious that this might be the case, we had been holding out hope that it might have at least some amount of reach in the US market. Essentially, HTC is focusing all of its stateside efforts on the 8X, its signature device. With that said, we'll still likely see the 8S show up as an unlocked and unsubsidized smartphone on various etailers, so Windows Phone enthusiasts with a penchant for bright colors will want to keep their eyes peeled. Now that we know more about the markets that won't be graced by the presence of the 8S, all we need now is a confirmation on when we can expect it elsewhere. Stay tuned past the break for HTC's official statement.
Continue reading HTC confirms the Windows Phone 8S will not be coming to the US
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/30/htc-windows-phone-8s-usa/
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Ouya will ship first dev kits for $99 Android gaming console in ...
The developers of the Ouya $99 video game console are almost ready to start shipping the first units to developers. The developer consoles will leave the factory on December 28th, and could start arriving in developers? hands a few days later.
Initially the only folks that are getting these gaming systems will be people who pledged $699 or more for a dev kit during the Ouya?s Kickstarter campaign. Final production units aren?t scheduled to ship until March or later.
The Ouya is a tiny video game console featuring an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, Google Android software with a custom user interface (and a custom game store), and a wireless game controller.
If you didn?t have $699 to spend, but backed the project at a lower level, Ouya systems should start shipping in March, 2013. Customers that pre-order from the Ouya website now that the Kickstarter campaign is over can expect devices to arrive in April
That?s assuming everything stays on schedule, but so far the company has been keeping its promises. The initial developer consoles always had an estimated ship date of December.
While the idea of a cheap, hackable video game console that can also be used as an inexpensive media center is pretty cool, the hardware might look a bit dated by the time the product is widely available.
Nobody expects new PlayStation, Xbox, or Wii hardware every year, but mobile chip makers put out newer, faster processors once or twice a year. We?re already starting to see phones and tablets with speedy processors like the Samsung Exynos 5250 ARM Cortex-A15 chip or Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 chip which make NVIDIA?s Tegra 3 chip look positively sluggish.
Still, if enough Ouya devices hit the streets, it could pose a popular platform for developers, and as Nintendo has shown time and again, you don?t necessarily need the fastest hardware to compete in the video game world. You just need to attract developers who know how to make games that are fun to play.
via Engadget
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- Announced07/10/2012
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Video: 'Under A Killing Moon', Part 2
Dateline NBC
'Dateline NBC,' the signature broadcast for NBC News in primetime, premiered in 1992. Since then, it has been pioneering a new approach to primetime news programming. The multi-night franchise, supplemented by frequent specials, allows NBC to consistently and comprehensively present the highest-quality reporting, investigative features, breaking news coverage and newsmaker profiles.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032600/vp/50034686#50034686
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Saturday, December 1, 2012
Green Blog: Susan Rice Has Stake in Keystone Pipeline
Should Susan E. Rice, the United Nations ambassador, be nominated for Secretary of State, one issue likely to arise during confirmation hearings, aside from the lethal attack on the American Mission in Benghazi, Libya, is her large stock holdings in TransCanada, the company seeking an American permit to build the proposed the Keystone XL pipeline.
According to financial disclosure documents filed in May, Ms. Rice and her family own from $300,000 to $600,000 worth of stock in the Canadian pipeline company .
Because the State Department oversees transboundary pipelines, the Secretary of State is ultimately responsible for determining whether Keystone XL should go forward.
But her stock holdings in TransCanada,? first reported by the Sunlight Foundation and Onearth.org, an environmental publication affiliated with the Natural Resources Defense Council, would surely complicate the issue.
According to the United States Office of Government Ethics, federal law requires executive branch employees to be recused from matters ?if it would have a direct and predictable effect on the employee?s own financial interests or on certain financial interests that are treated as the employee?s own.?
The ethics agency also advises that employees may be directed to divest financial investments if they pose a substantial conflict.
Last year, Ms. Rice and her husband earned between $7,500 and $25,000 on their investments in TransCanada, according to financial disclosure forms (which require officials to provide only a range of investments and earnings).
?We need a full team at the State Department, including the secretary, to be free of any conflicts of interest when it comes to tar sands and TransCanada,? said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which opposes Keystone XL.
?I think she would need to sell her stock, and we would fully expect her to do that.?
In an email from Erin Pelton, a spokesperson for Ms. Rice, From Erin Pelton, Spokesperson:
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?Ambassador Rice has complied with annual financial disclosure and applicable ethics requirements related to her service in the U.S. government and is committed to continuing to meet these obligations,? read an email sent by Erin Pelton, a spokesperson for Ms. Rice.
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Ms. Rice has not been nominated by President Obama to head the State Department, but she is said to be among his top choices.
?Ambassador Rice has complied with annual financial disclosure and applicable ethics requirements related to her service in the U.S. government and is committed to continuing to meet these obligations,? read an email sent by Erin Pelton, a spokesperson for Ms. Rice, on Friday. TransCanada said it was not in a position to speak about potential nominees.
Mr. Obama recently leapt to Ms. Rice?s defense as Congressional Republicans ramped up criticism of her handling of the attack on American diplomats in Benghazi, Libya.
?That is a matter for the president of the United States,? said Grady Semmens, a spokesman for the company.
Ms. Rice, whose husband is Canadian, also has stock in other Canadian energy companies whose pipeline projects would fall under the jurisdiction of the State Department.
Federal filings show that Ms. Rice and her husband own at least $1.5 million worth of holdings in Enbridge, which transports Canadian oil sands crude through the United States. The company was heavily criticized by environmental groups after a 2010 pipeline spill dumped more than 840,000 gallons of oil near Marshall, Mich., leading to the closure of a 39-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo River.
The fate of the Keystone XL, which would ship oil sands crude from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, is expected to be one of the most controversial decisions for the new Secretary of State.
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This post has been updated to include response from Ms. Rice?s office.
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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Important New Legal ...
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New York Times: NYT 10th Annual Year in Ideas - #1 Idea of the Year 'Do-It-Yourself Macroeconomics'Time Magazine: Best 25 Financial Blogs
Bloomberg: Financial Blogs: The Best of the Bunch
CNBC: Best Alternative Financial Websites
Strategist News: Best Business Blogs 2011
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2012-11-03: Capital Account"Jobs, Real Wages, Income Distribution, Fiscal Stimulus"
2012-10-10: Capital Account
"IMF Downgrades, Unemployment, Participation Rate, Conspiracies; What is the Best Way to Measure Unemployment?"
2012-09-19: Capital Account
"QE to Infinity and Beyond"
2012-07-24: Capital Account
"Social Media Panic in Italy, Soaring Yields in Spain, and the Upcoming 20th Euro Summit, Bound to be Another Failure"
2012-07-11: Capital Account
"Time for Krugman to Leave Ivory Tower for Real World"
2012-04-15: Max Keiser
European Merry-Go-Round, Rising Yields in Spain, Obamacare, the US Dollar, Student Loans, Gold
2012-03-06: Capital Account
Greek Exit, Stock Valuations, War in Iran, Where to Put Your Money, Faber's Formula for Safety
2012-01-28: Capital Account
Snow stories from Davos and "muddle-through" economics with Mish
2012-01-20: Capital Account
Discussion of Money Supply, Inflation, the Fed, SOPA; GOP Chairman Shelves Stop Online Piracy Act - A Triumph for Whom?
2011-12-20: Capital Account
Mish on Malfunctioning Bureaucrats, Gold's Recent Decline and Chinese Chicken Feet
2011-12-29: Max Keiser
Mish 2012 Predictions; 2011 Year in Review with Max Keiser
2011-11-18: Max Keiser
Rise of Technocrats, Fraudulent Conveyance, MF Global, the Culture of Greed, Christina Romer, and the US Dollar
2011-05-11: Wall Street Shuffle on Jobs, Silver, Oil
CNN Radio KFXR 1190 AM, Dallas-Fort Worth
2011-04-23: Syndicated Interview on Canadian Radio - My Segment Starts 29:31
This Week in Money Interview
2011-03-29 - Sound Money Interview
"Sound Money Interview on 91.5fm WNYE New York
2011-02-11 - Deflation or Inflation?
"Interview with the Freedom News Hour
2011-01-06 - Bulls and Bears Themes for 2011
"Frisby's Bulls and Bears 2011 Predictions from James Turk, Bob Hoye, Mish, Others
2010-03-12 - Mish with Marc Faber
"Inflation or Deflation?" Debate: Mish vs. Dr. Doom
2010-02-12 Max Keiser
Spotlight on China, Japan, Jobs, Pensions, Part 1
Spotlight on China, Japan, Jobs, Pensions, Part 2
2009-12-09 Tech Ticker
"Bank Lending, Jobs, The Great Retrace
2009-10-30 King World News
Mish and Eric King discuss Gold, the Stock Market, the US Dollar, Sideline Cash, China, and US real estate
2009-05-15: My Speech at Google
Thoughts on Blogging and the Economy - Speech at Google
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Source: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/11/important-new-legal-principal.html
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Get Up Close to Babbage's Difference Engine in This Gigapixel Image
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AP survey: Bonds, Clemens likely miss in Hall vote
NEW YORK (AP) ? Baseball's all-time home run king and its most decorated pitcher likely will be shut out of the Hall of Fame in January. A survey by The Associated Press shows that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, as well as slugger Sammy Sosa, don't have enough votes to get into Cooperstown.
With steroid scandals still very much on the minds of longtime members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America as they cast their ballots, the trio failed to muster even 50 percent support among the 112 voters contacted by the AP ? nearly one-fifth of those eligible to choose.
Candidates need 75 percent for election.
So Bonds, the only seven-time MVP, and Clemens, the only seven-time Cy Young Award winner, are likely to remain outside the Hall along with career hits leader Pete Rose, who was banned for betting on baseball as manager of the Cincinnati Reds.
"I'm not going to vote for anybody who has been tainted or associated with steroids," said MLB.com's Hal Bodley, the former baseball columnist for USA Today. "I'm just not going to do it. I might change down the road, but I just love the game too much. I have too much passion for the game and for what these people did to it."
The current ballot was announced this week and Bonds, Clemens and Sosa were on it for the first time. Votes will be cast throughout the month and results will be released Jan. 9.
Among voters who expressed an opinion, Bonds received 45 percent support, Clemens 43 percent and Sosa 18 percent. To gain election, Bonds and Clemens would need more than 80 percent support among the voters not surveyed and Sosa would need to get more than 85 percent.
"No one would dare say that Bonds, a seven-time National League MVP with 762 home runs, isn't a Hall of Famer," Thom Loverro, a columnist for The Washington Examiner, wrote in a column that explained his decision. "Nor would anyone say that Clemens, with 354 career victories, 4,672 strikeouts and seven Cy Young Awards, shouldn't be enshrined in Cooperstown. The same goes for Sosa, who finished with 609 career home runs, including 243 of them from 1998 through 2001.
"Except they cheated ? all of them. And this Hall of Fame is not just about numbers. Three of the six criteria for election to Cooperstown are sportsmanship, integrity and character. Bonds, Sosa and Clemens fail on all three counts."
The Denver Post's Troy Renck doesn't plan to vote for them, either.
"I understand that everyone has their opinion on this issue and I respect those," he said in a telephone interview. "For me personally, having coached kids for the last decade and talked to them about doing things a certain way, I would feel very uncomfortable voting for anyone that is a known cheater."
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Bruce Jenkins took the opposite view.
"The Hall of Fame's 'character' clause should be stricken immediately, because it's far too late to turn Cooperstown into a church," he wrote in an email. "Whether it was gambling (rampant in the early 20th century), scuffing the baseballs, corking bats, amphetamines or steroids, players have been cheating like crazy forever. It's an integral, if unsavory, part of the culture. I've always had the same criteria: which players were the best performers of their particular era ? so absolutely, I'll vote for Bonds, Clemens and Sosa."
Bonds and Clemens gained far more support than Sosa in the survey.
"I will definitely vote for Bonds and Clemens. I still need to consider Sosa's resume," ESPN.com's Jim Caple said. "Steroid use has nothing to do with my vote. Steroids were not banned during the majority of their careers when they achieved the vast majority of their accomplishments. All we can go by is what they did on the field. If Gaylord Perry is in the Hall for violating a rule that was in place 40 years before his career began, how can you justify withholding a vote from someone for a rule that wasn't in effect? (And personally, I would rather face a pitcher on PEDs than a spitballer)."
Hall voters are BBWAA members who have been with the organization for 10 consecutive years at any point. The BBWAA does not release the full list.
About 8-10 percent of the approximately 600 Hall of Fame voters are employees of the AP or freelance writers who work for the AP, the BBWAA said.
The AP contacted known voters by telephone and email from Wednesday to Friday. They were asked only how they would vote on Bonds, Clemens and Sosa: yes, no or unsure. About half asked not to be identified, and only those who agreed to be identified by name are quoted in this story.
Bonds has denied knowingly using steroids. A positive test was introduced as evidence during his criminal trial last year, when he was convicted of obstruction of justice by a jury that failed to reach a verdict on charges he made false statements to a grand jury when he denied knowing using performance-enhancing drugs.
Clemens has repeatedly denied drug use and was acquitted this year on charges he lied to Congress when he said he didn't take steroids or human growth hormone.
Sosa was among the 104 positive tests in baseball's 2003 anonymous survey, The New York Times reported in 2009. He told a congressional committee in 2005 that he never took illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
Bonds and Clemens fared far better in the survey than Mark McGwire did when a sample of voters were questioned by the AP before his first appearance on the ballot in December 2006. The slugger with 583 home runs received 24 percent support in the survey and 23.5 percent in the BBWAA ballot.
Since then, McGwire's support has never topped 24 percent and dropped to 19.5 percent of the 573 votes cast last January.
Rafael Palmeiro, who topped 3,000 hits and 500 home runs, was suspended for 10 days in 2005 following a positive test for Stanozolol ? he said he didn't know what caused it. He received 12.5 percent in January.
Several voters said their decisions were for this vote only and they planned to reassess their position each year. Some said that they wouldn't consider voting for Bonds, Clemens or Sosa this year because they didn't want them to have the additional honor of being elected on their first ballot.
Players who have appeared in 10 seasons and have been retired for five years are eligible for consideration by a six-member BBWAA screening committee, and a player goes on the ballot if he is supported by at least two screening committee members. A player remains on the ballot for up to 15 elections as long as he gets 5 percent of the votes every year.
Ballots must be submitted to the BBWAA by Dec. 31. Inductions will take place July 28.
Voters were contacted by telephone and email from Wednesday to Friday.
Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza and Curt Schilling also are among the 24 first-time eligibles, and Jack Morris, Jeff Bagwell and Tim Raines are the top holdover candidates.
___
AP Sports Writers Janie McCauley, Noah Trister and Ben Walker contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-survey-bonds-clemens-likely-miss-hall-vote-213206017--mlb.html
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Women Grows Beard To Promote Prostate Cancer Awareness - Q 103
Movember is not just for dudes I guess. Also is it weird that this chicks beard makes me feel like less of a man?
Growing a mustache during the month of November is a classic tradition people do to help support and raise money in awareness to prostate cancer. It?s a good cause to help fight cancer and an even better cause to help promote the growth of totally Rad mustaches. According to ABCNEWS a woman in England has decided to participate this year and grow out her beard. Apparently she has a pre existing condition that causes her to grow facial hair and it?s totally easy for her to grow one.
Must be nice lady, growing a beard like a man with zero effort. Mean while I sit here with the beard that looks as if I got super sweaty and someone just through a fist full of pubes at my face. I have patches like the pants of a sad clown. I respect what you?re doing lady but I can?t help but to be super jealous as well.
Click To See Her Beard
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Source: http://q103albany.com/women-grows-beard-to-promote-prostate-cancer-awareness-wait-what/
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